Tuning Plates Questions

[smoke_savage]

I had some spare time today and made some tuning plates for my offset, initial results were very good, just have a few questions:

- My offset is 1/4'' thick and the plates I cut were about half that in thickness, am I missing any benefits going this thin?

- do you tend to run plates along the whole length of the smoker? with a plate width gap at the end, currently, I only have enough to reach about three quarters across.

any pics of yours would be great.

[Big T]

I have a RF so I don't have tuning plates but I have seen several set ups over the years. The 1/2'' plates will probably take longer to heat up but they should hold heat pretty well. It really depends on what you're shooting for as to how many plates that you run and how far they cover. Some guys want a couple of different temp zones so they can cook chicken at a higher temp while cooking ribs at a lower temp in the same cooker. Most that I've seen have the first plate tight against the end of the CC, a half inch gap between the 2nd plate and the gaps increase from there to achieve the temps that they want.

[Dirtytires]

Most I’ve seen either use a solid plate with a small to big hole pattern or else a number of plates on a track so the gags can be adjusted.

The idea of a tuning plate is to soften out the temp swings so you will have to experiment to get what you want.

I don’t see why your thinner plates wouldn’t work but I feel thicker is always better.